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Congo ceasefire collapses as rebels attack army positions

A fragile ceasefire in the east of the
Democratic Republic of Congo has broken down as rebels who last week launched a
major offensive once more battled the Congolese army, the United Nations
peacekeeping mission in the African nation said Thursday.

Rebel Tutsi general Laurent Nkunda's
National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP) called a ceasefire last
Wednesday after its four-day offensive took it to the edge of Goma, the capital
of North Kivu province, reported dpa.

However, after two days of small-scale
clashes with the Mai-Mai pro-government militia, the CNDP on Thursday attacked
the Congolese army.

"We have received confirmation that
the CNDP has attacked the area of Nyanzale," Lieutenant Colonel Jean-Paul
Dietrich, spokesman for the DR Congo peacekeeping mission (MONUC) told
Deutsche-Presse-Agentur dpa. "The CNDP has broken its own ceasefire."

Dietrich said that government troops were
forced to abandon their HQ at Nyanzale, North Kivu, amid heavy fighting. The
nearby locality of Kikuku was also captured.

The civilian population around Nyanzale
fled the fighting and took refuge near the MONUC base on the outskirts of the
town, Dietrich said.

Aid agencies say that renewed fighting
between the CNDP and government forces has displaced at least 250,000 people
since late August.

As many as 50,000 of these people fled
during four days of fighting last week, many of them to the area around Goma,
the capital of the North Kivu province.

The breakdown in the ceasefire came as
regional leaders prepared to travel to Kenyan capital Nairobi for a Friday
summit aimed at ending the conflict.

The presidents of DR Congo and Rwanda, Joseph Kabila and Paul Kagame, are to attend the summit, as is UN Secretary General
Ban Ki-moon.

Western diplomats feel that bringing Rwanda and the DR Congo together at the table is key to resolving the conflict.

DR Congo has accused Rwanda of backing Nkunda, who says he is fighting to protect Tutsis from armed Hutu groups who fled
to DR Congo after the 1994 massacres in Rwanda, when 800,000 Tutsis and
moderate Hutus were killed.

However, many analysts say that the ethnic
dimension of the conflict is just a smokescreen for militias to grab a slice of
DR Congo's rich mineral deposits.

Nkunda, who accused the Congolese army of
starting the latest round of fighting, has said that he is ready to take Goma
and also continue onto the capital, Kinshasa, on the other side of the massive
country.

The UN peacekeeping mission has vowed to
defend Goma.

The Under-Secretary-General of Peacekeeping
Alain LeRoy said Wednesday that MONUC was reinforcing its positions in North Kivu, particularly in Goma.

However, while MONUC backed up the
Congolese army during the CNDP offensive, it was unable to hold back the rebel
tide.

MONUC chief Alan Doss said last week that
his troops, numbering 17,000 across the whole of the sprawling central African
nation, were stretched to their limit by the conflict.

Calls for more UN troops to be deployed in
the country have so far not been answered with any firm commitments, although a
UN Security Council meeting to approve the deployment of another 3,000 troops
is mooted for late November.

Aid agencies and lobby groups are concerned
that a fully fledged humanitarian catastrophe is in the making.

"The situation in the DRC remains on
the brink of a humanitarian catastrophe," Amnesty International said in a
statement Thursday. "The priority at the moment is reinforcing the
capacity of ... MONUC, to protect civilians and to ensure people have access to
humanitarian assistance."

The UN refugee agency, UNHCR, which on
Wednesday along with the World Food Programme (WFP) began distributing food in North Kivu, warned that the fresh fighting could jeopardize the delivery of aid.

The WFP on Wednesday began handing out 10
days of rations, including high energy biscuits, to 135,000 people living in
camps around Goma.

However, aid is not reaching many people
trapped behind rebel lines, while others are reportedly living in the forests
and subsisting on roots and berries.

Conflict has been rumbling on in the DR
Congo since the official end of the war in 2003. The CNDP and other groups
signed up to peace accords in January designed to finally bring the fighting to
an end, but the civilian population has continued to suffer.

More than 5 million people are estimated to
have died as a result of the 1998-2003 war in the resource-rich nation, most of
them from hunger and disease.

The conflict is often referred to as the
African World War, owing to the large number of different armed forces
involved.